{"id":1234,"date":"2022-08-10T21:25:09","date_gmt":"2022-08-11T04:25:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rockbands.net\/2012\/the-news-networks-sopa-blackout\/"},"modified":"2022-08-10T21:25:09","modified_gmt":"2022-08-11T04:25:09","slug":"the-news-networks-sopa-blackout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vmusicians.com\/2022\/the-news-networks-sopa-blackout\/","title":{"rendered":"The News Networks\u2019 SOPA Blackout"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Josh Levy<\/a>, January 9, 2012<\/p>\n

originally posted at SavetheInternet.com<\/a><\/p>\n

You may have heard about the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA. Simply put, it’s a bill in the House that could open the door to widespread Internet censorship.<\/p>\n

Opposition to the bill has reached a boiling point. Millions of activists, hundreds of
\nstartups, social media sites like Tumblr, Reddit and Twitter and even big
\ncompanies like Google, Yahoo! and eBay have joined with Free Press and other
\nInternet advocacy groups against it.<\/p>\n

This is one of the biggest tech stories of the year. Yet as a recent report from Media Matters for America shows, TV news has ignored it<\/a>.<\/p>\n

According to the report, SOPA \u2014 and Protect IP, its cousin in the Senate \u2014 have \u201creceived
\nvirtually no coverage from major American television news outlets during their
\nevening newscasts and opinion programming.\u201d Among the offenders are ABC, CBS,
\nFox News, MSNBC and NBC.<\/p>\n

A likely reason for the media blackout? The big networks \u2014 and their parent
\ncompanies \u2014 support these two Internet-censorship bills.<\/p>\n

This is what happens when the interests of big business get in the way of the need
\nto inform the public and protect free speech. These same media giants are
\nlobbying the Federal Communications Commission to loosen its ownership rules
\nand allow for even more media consolidation \u2014 another issue they\u2019ve failed to
\ncover. If the FCC permits runaway
\nconsolidation<\/a>,
\nmedia blackouts like the one affecting SOPA could become even more common.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, rank-and-file journalists are coming out strong<\/a> against these censorship bills. And print media have reported on them. Earlier this month New York Times<\/em> columnist David Carr wrote<\/a> that SOPA was \u201calarming in its
\nreach.\u201d Time<\/em><\/a>, the Atlantic<\/a><\/em>, Forbes<\/em><\/a> and the Boston Globe<\/em><\/a> have all reported on the legislation in the past week.<\/p>\n

What is TV news afraid of?<\/p>\n

These networks \u2014 ABC, CBS, Fox News, MSNBC and NBC \u2014 need to be held accountable<\/a> for failing to provide coverage of
\nsuch damaging legislation.<\/p>\n

Free Press is a national, nonpartisan organization working to reform the media. Free Press does not support or oppose any candidate for public office. Through education, organizing and advocacy, we promote diverse and independent media ownership, strong public media and universal access to communications.<\/p>\n


\n \"\" <\/a><\/p>\n

Josh Levy<\/a><\/h2>\n

Josh is the Internet Campaign Director for Free Press and the Free Press Action Fund.<\/p>\n

Read Josh’s full bio \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n

http:\/\/indiemusicnews.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Josh Levy, January 9, 2012 originally posted at SavetheInternet.com You may have heard about the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA. Simply put, it’s a bill in the House that could open the door to widespread Internet censorship. Opposition to the bill has reached a boiling point. Millions of activists, hundreds of startups, social […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[350],"tags":[406,407,370,408,409,410,411,412,353,354,371,413,414,415,416,417,372,418,419,391,420,395,421],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vmusicians.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1234"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vmusicians.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vmusicians.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vmusicians.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vmusicians.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1234"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vmusicians.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1234\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vmusicians.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vmusicians.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vmusicians.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}